Self-Consciousness, Solipsism, And Storytelling: John Banville's Debt to Samuel Beckett‪.‬

Beckett's Example His work rises through the mire of our times like a buried testament. He knows, with Kafka, that so long as we can say, here is the worst, then the worst has not yet arrived. Out of such scant hopes he has built his aesthetic. To look things in the face and not to flinch. To shun accumulation, valuing depth over breadth. To find forms that will accommodate the chaos. To work always out of darkness. To go on. His courage has been exemplary, his success a revelation. We stand rapt, like Sapo before the flight of the hawk, fascinated by such extremes of need, of pride, of patience and of solitude. (1)